Jan. 19 (Bloomberg) -- Chief executive officers from
Microsoft Corp. and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. will be among the
corporate leaders the Obama administration is bringing together
today for a meeting with Chinese President Hu Jintao aimed at
expanding U.S. business interests in China.

CEOs Steve Ballmer of Microsoft and Lloyd Blankfein of
Goldman will be joined by General Electric Co.’s Jeffrey Immelt,
Jim McNerney of Boeing Co. and 10 other U.S. business leaders
for the meeting, the administration announced.

The CEO summit on the White House grounds, coming between a
formal welcoming ceremony and a dinner in Hu’s honor, is part of
the economic focus President Barack Obama is putting on the
first formal state visit by a Chinese leader in more 13 years.

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said the session
will highlight the “important economic relationship” between
the two countries and the role U.S. exporters play in creating
jobs.

“You’ll see important commercial relationships that our
CEOs have and want to expand in China that the president
believes is important to make a forceful case in front of both
the CEOs from China as well as President Hu,” Gibbs told
reporters yesterday.

“People in the U.S. welcome us,” Lu said in an interview.
“We’re solving their employment problems.”

The itinerary for Hu’s U.S. visit reflects the importance
both countries place on their economic ties. It also meshes with
Obama’s goal of boosting exports to spur job growth. Still, the
relationship, marked by more than $400 billion in annual trade,
is complicated by disagreements on issues as varied as human
rights, China’s enforcement of intellectual property rights and
what U.S. officials say is the artificially low value of China’s
currency.

All of those topics will be addressed in the meetings
between Obama and Hu, according to Gibbs.

Joint Briefing

Hu arrived in Washington late yesterday before today’s
official arrival ceremony on the South Lawn. The two leaders
also will also hold a joint press conference. In the evening,
Obama will host a state dinner in Hu’s honor. The Chinese leader
also plans to meet with members of Congress while in Washington.

Hu will travel later in the week to Chicago, where U.S. and
Chinese companies will announce about 40 agreements, the Chicago
Council on Global Affairs said. Chinese and U.S. companies
signed six agreements worth about $600 million in Texas during
the visit of a delegation headed by Wang Chao, the deputy
minister of commerce, Xinhua news agency reported.

GE and American Electric Power Inc. were among the
companies that signed agreements in Washington yesterday to
expand cooperation between China and the U.S. on alternative
energy projects.

GE’s deal with China’s Huadian Corp. should result in the
sale of 50 aero-derivative turbine generator sets to the Chinese
company, generating $350 million in U.S. exports over a decade.
While Hu is in the U.S., the company plans to announce rail,
aviation and energy projects yielding at least $2.1 billion.

Clean Energy

Columbus, Ohio-based AEP signed an agreement with China
Huaneng Group, China’s biggest power producer, to work together
to develop and evaluate carbon-capture technology.

AEP operates a plant in West Virginia using Alstom SA
technology, which captures carbon generated by a coal-fired
power plant and injects it in rock layers miles underground.

The Chinese companies “are moving forward in a very rapid
pace with new technology,” Michael Morris, CEO of AEP, said in
an interview with Bloomberg Television.

Other companies signing agreements yesterday included Duke
Energy Corp., which will work with China’s ENN Group to develop
technologies that will support clean energy for U.S. and Chinese
cities. New York-based Ener1 Inc. rose the most in almost five
years after it announced a joint venture with a unit of China’s
largest auto-parts maker Wanxiang Group Co. Ltd. to make
lithium-ion batteries for electric vehicles.

‘Very Large’ Market

Increasing cooperation with China on clean energy “will
dramatically expand high quality jobs, living standards, and our
economy in the United States,” said Jon Huntsman, the U.S.
ambassador to China. “So as long as we continue to produce
cutting-edge technology and maintain our competitive advantage
in management, services and education, the China market will
loom very large.”

China had a $252 billion trade surplus with the U.S. in the
first 11 months of 2010, according to Commerce Department data.
The U.S. exported $100 billion worth of goods and services to
China last year. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said last
week that with the current rate of growth in U.S. exports there,
China will become the biggest American trading partner in about
a decade.